The boys school fete is today and they’ve given it a Wild West theme. There are 2 competitions to enter and Cam has entered both.

Best Decorated TeePee
and
Desert On A Plate

Despite jumping up and down with excitement wishing I could enter with my own creations Cam was less than enthusiastic to start with. He had no ideas and no clue where to start. I find this hard to comprehend because I was always quite an artistic kid. I spent hours colouring, drawing pictures and making other bits and pieces. Cameron is very technically minded so the simple understated things don’t come easily to him. Give him a circuit board and some wires and batteries and he’ll build you a car but designing a model Tee Pee is the limit!

I sat him down and we browsed through Google images looking at pictures of the Wild West deserts and Tee Pees trying to gather some ideas on what to do. Obviously I could have just sat there and told him how to make something but I wanted him to come up with the ideas and inspiration himself so that he could feel good about whatever he created as well as learn how to go about something when you have no idea where to start.

After getting him to list things you might find in the desert out west we set about with a large plate, tissue paper, Fimo, some rocks and stones from the driveway, fine ground cornmeal/polenta for sand and a small box. The only thing I helped him make was the Saloon out of a granola bar box and then I left it to him to decorate it. He did a fantastic job, even coming up with the idea for the matchstick support posts. We used a plant book to find ideas for different cactus to make and Cam copied the plants in the book using Fimo modeling clay.

The Tee Pee was made from Canvas supported by some sticks out of the garden. He drew on the canvas with felt tip pens to decorate it and glued down the rocks and bits of wood at the front for the fire.

Despite having no enthusiasm to start with he really got involved and spent a total of 3 hours putting these two pieces together. When he finished he had an uncontrollable grin on his face because he was so pleased with his effort. Good to see him happy with something he’s done for a change.

I’ve just taken both of these pieces to the school and got a sneaky peek at the competition – it’s going to be close!!